“I blinked the sleep out of my eyes and realized my head was in Khufu’s lap. The baboon was foraging my scalp for munchies.“Dude.” I sat up groggily. “Not cool.”“But he gave you a lovely hairdo,” Sadie said.“Agh-agh!” Khufu agreed.”

“Baboons are very wise animals,” Bast said.“Agh!” Khufu picked his nose, then turned his Technicolor bum our direction. He threw his friends the ball. They began to fight over it, showing one another their fangs and slapping their heads.“Wise?” I asked.”

“Agh-uhh!” the baboon grunted. He turned and waddled up the stairs. Unfortunately, the Lakers jersey didn’t completely cover his multicolored rear.”

“Lookin up at the huge baboons, I wondered if Khufu had some sort of secret baboon code that would get us in. But instead he barked at the statues and cowered heroically behind my legs.”

“Amos clapped his hands. “Khufu!”I thought he’d sneezed, because Khufu is a weird name, but then a little dude about three feet tall with gold fur and a purple shirt came clambering down the stairs. It took me a second to realize it was a baboon wearing an L.A. Lakers jersey.”

“I woke feeling as if someone had overinflated my head. My eyes weren’t seeing the same things. Out my left, I saw a baboon bum, out my right, my long-lost uncle Amos. Naturally, I decided to focus on the right.”

“Sadie," he said forlornly, "when you become a parent, you may understand this. One of my hardest jobs as a father, one of my greatest duties, was to realize that my own dreams, my own goals and wishes, are secondary to my children's.”